Chapter 19
Logan strode toward me, and my heart rose up in my chest. By now, the Spartan was sure to have heard what had happened with my grandma, Preston, and the Reaper girl. I hoped he, well, I didn’t know exactly what I hoped. I was just glad he was here.
I got to my feet and started to smile at the Spartan—until I realized that he was trailed once more by his first-year student entourage. The kids, including several more girls than before, hurried after the Spartan, like groupie fans trailing after a rock star. I rolled my eyes.
Logan said something to one of the first-year guys, who herded everyone else over to the bleachers so they could watch us practice. Only I didn’t know if we were even training today. I hung back, holding Vic, and waited for Logan to make the first move.
“Hey,” the Spartan called out, going over and grabbing a sword from one of the racks of weapons.
“Hey,” I said, playing it cool.
On the bleachers behind me, Daphne let out a loud snort. “Oh, just go ahead and kiss and make up already,” the Valkyrie said. “You know you both want to.”
I would have liked nothing better. But we couldn’t kiss—not without my flashing on Logan and learning the rest of his secret. Finding out what he was so afraid to tell me, the deep, dark thing he thought would change my feelings for him. I could see the same thought filling the Spartan’s eyes. That, yeah, maybe he would have liked to kiss me, but he didn’t want to give up his secret just to touch me. It hurt, knowing his secret was more important to him than I was. It hurt more than I ever could have imagined it would.
Tears pricked my eyes, but I blinked them back. Once again, my Gypsy gift was what was keeping us apart. I’d always loved my magic and the secrets it revealed to me, but for the first time, I wondered what it would be like not to have it. To be able to just let go and not worry about whom I was touching and what I might see. To just step into Logan’s arms without any kind of fear of learning that he didn’t care about me as much as I did him or the secrets he just didn’t want to share.
The Spartan swung his sword from side to side, getting a feel for the weapon as he walked over to my position in the center of one of the mats. Logan stopped in front of me. Even now, when I knew how angry he was at me, my heart thudded at the sight of him. Black hair, blue eyes, strong body. All that was missing was his usual teasing grin.
I smiled at him, hoping he’d smile back and I’d know that everything was going to be all right between us. Instead, Logan’s eyes were ice-cold as he raised his sword and lightly kissed the blade against my weapon.
“Ready, Gypsy girl?” he asked in a neutral voice.
My heart quivered with pain, but I nodded and tightened my grip on Vic.
For the next hour, we sparred, with Logan mock killing me again and again. Too bad the deadly Spartan couldn’t put a dagger in my feelings for him as well.
Logan left the gym as soon as we finished training, followed by his entourage. I stood in front of the bleachers and watched him push through one of the doors. The Spartan didn’t look back at me—not even once.
“Don’t worry, Gwen,” Oliver said as he packed up his things. “He’ll come around. You’ll see.”
I thought of the coldness in Logan’s eyes this morning and the things he’d said to me the other night. I didn’t think there was anything I could do or say to Logan to make him forgive me. Not this time.
“Gwen?” Oliver said.
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right. Logan will come around sooner or later.” I forced myself to smile at my friend, even though the lie burned my tongue like acid.
The rest of the day passed by like it always did. Classes, lectures, homework assignments, the usual froufrou food in the dining hall. Finally, the last bell rang after myth-history class. Metis glanced in my direction like she wanted to come over and make sure I was doing okay, but I didn’t have time for the professor today. I had a hunch that I wanted to check out—and unfortunately, Daphne insisted on going with me.
I brushed my brown hair back off my face and jiggled my hand, shaking off a stray spark of her magic that had decided to cling to my skin instead of winking out. A second later, that princess pink spark was replaced by a dozen more. Daphne always gave off more magic when she was nervous, worried, or upset.
You’d think she’d never broken into someone’s room before.
And she thought I was a freak. Please. I could totally keep my cool when the occasion called for a little breaking and entering. And blackmail. And, well, several things that weren’t exactly on the up and up. My Gypsy gift and all the Bad, Bad Things I’d seen with it had made me a little jaded that way. Okay, okay,
totally
jaded that way.
“Will you hurry up with that already?” Daphne hissed. “She could come back any second. I don’t see why we’re even doing this in the first place.”
I slid my driver’s license in between the doorframe and the lock that was keeping me out of Savannah Warren’s room. “Well, it would go a lot faster if you’d keep quiet and quit asking me to hurry up. I can only concentrate on one thing at a time.”
“And here I thought you were such a brilliant multitasker,” Daphne muttered, glancing down the empty hall toward the stairs like she had ten times in the last minute.
I rolled my eyes and started to snap back at her, when my license slid exactly where I wanted it to go, and the door clicked open.
“Bingo,” I whispered, turned the knob, and stepped inside.
Daphne hovered in the doorway, an uncertain look on her face. I rolled my eyes again.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” I said, grabbing her arm and dragging her inside. “The key to breaking and entering is to actually
enter
after you break. Not stand around in the hall where everyone can see exactly what you’re doing.”
“Sorry,” Daphne muttered. “I haven’t had quite the experience at this as you have, Gwen.”
Yeah, we were totally sniping at each other, but I didn’t mind because this was as close to normal as we’d been since the Reaper attack.
“Tell me again why we’re in here?” Daphne asked, tiptoeing forward to stand beside the bookcase that hugged the wall inside the door.
“Because Vivian hired me to find her ring, and the last time she remembers seeing it is when she was with Savannah.”
Yeah, yeah, I knew there were more important things I could be doing, like seeing if Metis and the others had figured out where Preston and the Reaper girl were hiding. But I’d taken Vivian’s money to find her ring, and I owed it to her to try to do that, especially since it meant so much to her, since it had been her mom’s ring, too. I knew what it was like to lose your mom, how you wanted to hold on to every piece of her you had left.
Besides, I wanted to do
something
right this week. Maybe finding Vivian’s ring would be it. At the very least, maybe it would take my mind off all my other problems—for a little while anyway.
“So what?” Daphne said. “Savannah probably just borrowed it without telling her. Friends do that all the time.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really? So if I was to borrow, oh, I don’t know, your favorite purse without telling you, then you’d be perfectly okay with that?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’d be okay with it, but you might not be if you wanted to live long enough to finish the semester.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said, going over to the vanity table. “Now help me look for Vivian’s ring.”
“Fine,” Daphne huffed, stepping forward. “But I’m doing this under protest.”
“So noted. Now shut up and start looking.”
We spent the next ten minutes tossing Savannah’s room. Okay, okay, so maybe
tossing
wasn’t the right word, but we did look in every cubbyhole, crack, and crevice that we could find, along with all the usual hiding spots kids thought were so clever, the places where no one would
ever
think to look for their supersecret stash of candy bars, beer, cigarettes, or whatever their vice of choice was. Under the mattress. Taped to the bottom of a drawer. Tucked in a plastic bag and stuffed into the back of the toilet. I knew all the good hiding places, and my mom had told me about even more she’d discovered as a police detective.
“Nothing,” Daphne said when we finished. “See? I told you Savannah didn’t have the ring. Now, can we please get out of here before she comes back? Savannah’s supposed to meet Talia and Vivian in her room this afternoon. That’s what I heard her say when I was standing in line behind her in the dining hall.”
Daphne’s telling me what she’d overheard at lunch was the reason I’d decided to break in here, since it was kind of hard to look for lost or stolen property when the thief was still in her room.
Frustrated, I put my hands on my hips and looked at the room again. For some reason, I felt like Vivian’s ring was in here somewhere, like I could almost feel it calling out to me. I wasn’t ready to give up, so I went through the room again, more slowly and methodically this time, despite the fact that Daphne threw off more and more sparks of magic the longer we stayed.
The Valkyrie was just about to forcibly drag me out into the hallway when I grabbed a book and accidently banged it into the side of the bookcase—and the ring slipped out from the case and fell to the floor.
I leaned forward, staring at the inside of the bookcase. I’d pulled out all the books and had looked through and behind them, but the ring had been wedged into a hollow space where one of the wooden shelves didn’t quite meet the side of the case. Not too shabby, as far as hiding places went. Definitely a little more creative than the back of the toilet.
Daphne bent over, picked up the ring, and turned it around and around in the palm of her hand.
“This? You really think Savannah stole
this?
It’s just gold. There aren’t even any diamonds on it. No rubies, no sapphires, nothing. It doesn’t even look like it’s worth more than a couple hundred bucks. And those two faces are really ugly.” Her critique finished, the Valkyrie sniffed and handed it over to me.
Images filled my mind as soon as I touched the ring.
I’d expected to get a few vibes off the ring, especially since Vivian had told me how special it was to her and how it had been her mom’s ring. And I did see those memories. A younger Vivian standing by a bed. An older woman reaching up, her bloody hand shaking as she handed over the ring. Vivian crying and slipping the gold band onto her finger. I could feel Vivian’s emotions, too. Her sadness that her mom was dying, her anger at the people who’d killed her. They made my own heart ache for the other girl. I knew how hard it was to lose your mom—especially to the Reapers.
I also saw other flashes, images of Vivian wearing the ring and growing up over the years. But then, the images changed and shifted. For a second, I felt like something was wrong. Like there was some feeling, some emotion attached to the ring I couldn’t quite grasp, that my Gypsy gift couldn’t quite show me, for whatever reason. It was the same vague, uneasy feeling I’d had when I’d touched the map the Reaper girl had dropped in the coliseum.
Then, a new image filled my mind—one of Savannah putting on the ring.
The pretty Amazon sat at the vanity table in her room, staring down at her hand and admiring the Janus ring and the way the gold glinted. I felt Savannah’s smug satisfaction that the ring was hers now, that she’d taken what she wanted and that no one was the wiser. Greed. The feeling made me sick to my stomach. So Vivian was right, and Savannah had stolen her ring after all. Some best friend she was.
I’d thought that would be the end of the memories, but the image didn’t fade away. Instead, it sharpened, hammering into my head, and Savannah reached over and picked up something on top of the vanity table—a Reaper mask.
Horrified, I watched as Savannah put on the mask, then grabbed a black robe from the floor and draped it over her shoulders. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and smiled, a bit of Reaper red fire flashing in her eyes.
I recognized her then. How could I not?
I was so shocked that the rest of the vision slipped away, splintering into shards that felt like they were stabbing deeper and deeper into my brain. I gasped in pain and opened my eyes. The ring slipped from my trembling fingers and hit the floor again.
“What? What is it?” Daphne said. “Why do you have that weird, sick look on your face?”
“Because Savannah didn’t just steal Vivian’s ring,” I said in a whisper, staring at my best friend. “She’s a Reaper, too. And not just any Reaper. She’s the Reaper girl, Daphne. Loki’s Champion. The one who murdered my mom.”
Chapter 20
“Savannah Warren? A Reaper?” Daphne shook her head, making her blond ponytail swish from side to side. “No, I don’t believe it. No way.”
“But she has the ring,” I said.
I looked down at the ring lying on the floor. The sunlight streaming in through the window made the gold gleam, causing another thought to pop into my head. I remembered somewhere else I’d seen a flash of gold recently. I reached for the memory of the Reaper girl sitting in the car outside my Grandma Frost’s house and focused in on it, playing the images again in my head. I hadn’t paid much attention to it before, but there it was on her right hand, winking at me like an evil eye when she tapped her fingers against her lips.
I stabbed my finger at the ring. “I saw the Reaper girl wearing that in my vision of her attacking my Grandma Frost’s house. It’s the same ring Vivian says she thinks Savannah stole from her room.”
Daphne shook her head again, pink sparks flying off her fingertips. “No, Gwen. You don’t understand. There’s no way Savannah could be a Reaper.”
“Why not?”
Daphne stared at me. “Because Reapers killed her entire family.”
“What?”
The Valkyrie sighed. “You know that practically everyone at Mythos has lost somebody to the Reapers, right? Their parents, an aunt, an uncle, a friend, somebody.”
I nodded.
“Well, a little over a year ago, just after we started as first-year students, Savannah’s family was murdered by Reapers. Her parents, her kid sister, even some cousins. The Reapers broke into her parents’ summer house in London and slaughtered them all. Even for the Reapers, it was
vicious
. The only reason Savannah wasn’t killed too was because she was here. She pulled out of school after that and went to stay with her aunt. She didn’t come back until after the holidays last year. So I’m telling you there is
no way
Savannah is a Reaper. It’s just not possible.”
Daphne looked at the ring on the floor. The Valkyrie might not have my psychometry magic, but she didn’t want to pick it up any more than I did. Not if it belonged to a Reaper. “What about Vivian?”
“What about Vivian?”
Daphne gestured at the ring. “It’s her ring, right? So maybe the images you saw were her. Maybe your magic got mixed up or something, and she’s really the Reaper.”
I eyed her. “You really think someone like Vivian Holler could be a Reaper? You saw how scared she was at the coliseum after the attack, and you told me yourself that she sucks with weapons. The Reaper girl, whoever she really is, definitely does not suck with weapons. I had the cuts and bruises to prove it. She’s beaten me twice now. Do you think Vivian could do something like that?”
Daphne shrugged. “But it’s her ring, so the memories attached to it should all be hers, right?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I saw some images of Vivian’s mom giving her the ring and Vivian wearing it. But then, the images changed, and it was Savannah wearing the ring, and Savannah putting on a Reaper mask. Not Vivian.”
“You didn’t see anyone else wearing it?”
I shook my head.
“So it’s got to be one of them, right? Maybe the memories are messed up because they’ve both worn the ring.”
I stared down at the gold band. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. If Vivian’s the Reaper, then why would she hire me to find her missing ring? Supposedly, the Reapers know all about my psychometry magic. She’d have to realize that I’d flash on her being a Reaper as soon as I touched it.”
“Who knows why Reapers do what they do?” Daphne said, finally bending down and picking up the ring. “They’re all about head games. Anyway, we’re not going to figure it out standing around here. Let’s go before Savannah comes back. I don’t think she’s a Reaper, but I don’t want to take a chance I’m wrong about it, either.”
We left Savannah’s room, walked down the hall, and went into Daphne’s room. I grabbed my messenger bag and pulled out a plastic bag. Using the edge of my hoodie sleeve, I took the ring from Daphne, careful not to touch it with my bare fingers, and slid it inside the plastic. The gold masks gleamed at me, looking bright and sinister at the same time.
“So what are you going to do with it?” Daphne asked.
I shrugged. “I guess I’ll give it back to Vivian. What else can I do? It’s her ring. Besides, I don’t want to tell Metis that I think either Savannah or Vivian is really the Reaper girl and Loki’s Champion in disguise. At least, not without proof.”
“Well, how do you think we could get some proof?” Daphne asked.
I thought about it. “I’d have to touch them. Savannah and Vivian. Objects can get so many images and feelings attached to them that it can sometimes fuzz up everything else, just like you said. But I don’t think there’s any way a Reaper could hide what she really was if I touched her. At least, not that I know of. I think it’s worth a shot, anyway. Then, I can tell Metis which one of them it is.”
“All right, so who do you want to start with?” Daphne asked.
“Vivian,” I said. “That’ll be easier. I have a reason to see her now that I found her ring. Getting close enough to touch Savannah will be trickier, seeing as how she hates me so much.”
Daphne and I made plans to meet up later at the library, and she promised to bring Carson along for backup. I also texted Vivian to meet me at the library so I could give her the ring. Then, I went to my dorm room, grabbed Vic from his spot on the wall, and told him what was going on.
“Well, it’s about bloody time you discovered the Reaper girl’s real identity,” the sword said. “I’m looking forward to sinking my teeth into Lucretia again.”
Vic made a chomping sound with his mouth. I frowned and held him out at arm’s length. Did the sword even have teeth? I’d never thought to look, and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to now.
While Vic crowed on and on and
on
about how he was going to cut Lucretia to ribbons, I sank down onto the floor and started petting Nott. Maybe it was just my Gypsy gift, but the wolf looked like she’d doubled in size since I’d seen her this morning. Her eyes were duller, too, as though she was still tired, even though she’d been in my room all day resting. What was wrong with her? Why was she always so exhausted?
“How are you feeling, girl?” I murmured.
Nott thumped her tail and leaned into my touch. I closed my eyes and concentrated. Once again, I could feel that spark of life in her stomach, the pup waiting to be born, although I had no idea when that might happen or what to do to help her. With everything that had been going on, I’d kind of forgotten Nott was a mom-to-be. I’d have to call Grandma later and get some advice on how to make the wolf more comfortable. Grandma had been raised on a farm. She’d know what to do. She always did.
I made sure Nott had enough water and gave her all the meat I’d been able to get from the dining hall at lunch today. After she ate, the wolf curled up in her nest of blankets and went to sleep. I petted her a final time before grabbing Vic. I left the door open a crack so Nott could get out and have more room to roam around if she wanted to, then walked across campus to the library.
Once more, I stopped outside the building, staring at the gryphons that crouched on either side of the entrance. It seemed like I was seeing the gryphons everywhere I went these days. First, in my mom’s diary, then in the architecture book I’d found, and now here again in real life. If only the Helheim Dagger was as easy to find.
As I stared at the gryphons, I wondered what I always did—what would happen if I actually touched one of the statues, if my psychometry would somehow make it actually spring to life and attack me the way I’d seen it do in my dream last night.
I looked around at the other kids moving in and out of the library, laughing, talking, and leaning against the other statues like it was no big deal. The other students sat next to and even on the gryphons and other stone creatures on campus all the time. Surely, they wouldn’t bite me ... or whatever.
Suck it up, Gwen.
That’s what Daphne would tell me if she was here, and my friend was right. I’d been creeped out by the gryphons and other statues ever since I’d first started going to Mythos. Enough was enough. It was time for me to realize the statues were just made of stone—nothing else. Determined to put my weird phobia to rest once and for all, I reached out with my fingers to touch one of the gryphons—
“Late again, I see,” a snide voice murmured behind me. “Usually, you actually make it
inside
the library before you start wasting time.”
I sighed and dropped my hand. “Yes, Nickamedes?”
The librarian strode up beside me, carrying several books. “Here,” he said, dumping the books into my arms. “Make yourself useful and go shelve those. I’ve got another load to bring over from the English-history building.”
“Yes, master,” I muttered, but the librarian had already turned and walked away, so he didn’t hear me.
I thought about putting the books down on the stairs and going through with my plan to touch the gryphon before I went into the library to work my shift—
“Now, Gwendolyn!” Nickamedes called out from across the quad.
I sighed, juggled the books so they’d fit better in my arms, and headed inside before he could yell at me again.
The evening passed the way it always did. I checked out books, helped students look up others, and even got some of my own homework done on the side. I finally decided to start writing the architecture essay for Metis’s class, and I scanned through the gryphon book, looking for information I could use.
But I couldn’t concentrate. Over and over again, my eyes kept going back to the other book in my bag—my mom’s diary. Something about the diary was slowly working its way up from the bottom of my brain. I knew better than to rush it, though. That would only give me a headache, and I’d already had plenty of those this week.
Daphne stepped into the library at about six, along with Carson. The Valkyrie came over to the checkout desk, like she was just hanging out a second. I quickly finished eating the cherry granola bar I’d bought from Raven’s cart earlier and polished off the rest of my bottled water.
“You ready?” she said in a low voice.
I nodded. “Yep, I’ve got the ring right here, and Vivian just texted me to say she’s on her way. So hang back, and we’ll see what happens.”
Daphne nodded and moved over to a study table where Carson was waiting. I’d just gone back to my architecture book when Logan walked into the library.
The sight of him took my breath away, despite how cold and distant he’d been this morning during weapons training. I expected him to go sit at one of the study tables or maybe get a snack from the coffee cart, but to my surprise, Logan headed over to me, as if I was the person he’d come here to see all along. The thought made my heart start hammering in my chest, but I told myself not to get my hopes up.
“Gypsy girl.”
“Spartan.”
We stared at each other for several seconds before Logan sighed.
“Look, I’ve been thinking about the other day, and I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I know that your having the kind of magic you do isn’t your fault. It’s just ... frustrating. That you can know all these things about me with just a brush of your fingers. It scares me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I could turn it off—for you.”
His lips twitched up into the barest hint of a smile. “I know, but I didn’t have to be such a dick about it either. Or act the way I did this morning in the gym. I was wondering if we could just start over and rewind to how things were at the coliseum before the Reapers attacked. Do you think we could do that?”
I looked into his blue, blue eyes, and I knew I would do anything for him—even forgive him. “I’d love that, Spartan. I really would.”
He grinned, and suddenly, everything was right in my world again. I wanted nothing more than to lean across the checkout counter and hug him tight, but I forced myself to be cool and make things work this time. As long as Logan was hiding something, we were still on shaky ground. I wanted the Spartan to tell me his secret in his own way, in his own time, and I didn’t want to do anything to mess up what we had between us until then.
“Maybe we should take things slow,” I said. “You know, sit down and actually talk instead of fighting Reapers and going from one crisis to the next. Maybe we can finally get that coffee we’ve been talking about for a while now.”
Logan’s grin widened. “I’d like that. As for taking it slow, that’s fine, too—as long as you can control yourself around me, Gypsy girl. I have a reputation for being irresistible, you know.”
I rolled my eyes, and he laughed, a low, warm, deep chuckle that made my toes tingle.
My good mood didn’t last long, because Vivian entered the library, along with Savannah and Talia. The three Amazons put their stuff down on one of the study tables, then Vivian walked over and stepped up behind Logan, apparently thinking the Spartan was in line to check out a book.